- Some business owners are confident in the ability of Knoxville residents to find alternate downtown routes with the Gay Street Bridge closed.
- Others are concerned about the closure continuing to hurt business, especially as the Sevier Avenue streetscape gets underway.
- The Sevier Avenue side of the bridge expects a boost from the city during the streetscape, including a newly paved parking lot for visitors.
- Reopening the bridge to pedestrians and cyclists could require $2 million in repairs, while building a new bridge for vehicles is not financially possible at the moment.
How do you feel about the Gay Street Bridge closure? The answer might depend on what side of the damaged bridge you’re on − in a literal sense, from the downtown restaurants to Sevier Avenue merchants now feeling disconnected, and in your confidence about people’s ability to adapt to change.
“I don’t know what has hurt us more, the bridge being closed or Ozempic,” Bistro at the Bijou owner Martha Boggs told Knox News with a laugh, though the seriousness of losing the daily traffic count of 7,000 vehicles across the bridge is something stakeholders are thinking about.
While Boggs believes Knoxville residents will get used to the bridge being reserved for pedestrians and cyclists, which the city announced Feb. 12 after months of having nothing new to report, SoKno Sourdough owner Stephanie Carlson is already distancing herself further from downtown.
Everything Carlson needs, she said, is in South Knoxville, including along Sevier Avenue.
“I didn’t leave that much this side of the river anyways, and now I definitely don’t leave that much,” Carlson said. “Like, I’m not going downtown anymore. So, I think that the bridge is affecting both sides of the river.”
For the sake of Sevier Avenue businesses, here’s hoping people coming from downtown don’t feel the same way about South Knoxville. Crews began working last month on the Sevier Avenue streetscape project that’s moving overhead utilities underground, improving sidewalks and lighting, and creating a roundabout at the street’s intersection with Island Home Avenue and Foggy Bottom Street.
Construction is expected to last two years, and businesses are bracing for what that could mean for customer bases. At least one lane of traffic is supposed to remain open on Sevier Avenue for most of the project.
Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon met with Sevier Avenue business owners Feb. 13 to discuss how the city will support South Knoxville through the construction project, as well as through the bridge being closed.
Part of the support will involve paving the gravel lot beneath James White Parkway on Island Home Avenue to signal to visitors that it is, in fact, a public parking option.
“This is not a choice I made or anything I expected that to handle,” Kincannon said of the bridge never reopening to vehicles. “Sometimes, things come down to the fact that no one wanted or expected. Fortunately, nobody’s gotten hurt, and nobody’s been killed, and that’s important.”
Part of the city’s message in promoting Sevier Avenue is that alternate routes exist, and Boggs is confident people who want to go downtown can figure out routes using James White Parkway and the Henley Street Bridge.
Gay Street restaurant owner: ‘At least we know what’s going on now’
Aside from Bistro regulars and those catching a show at the neighboring theater, which Boggs said provides a steady cadence of guests, foot traffic from across the bridge in South Knoxville has been a notable source of customers.
While pedestrians will be able to use the bridge once it reopens, it has been closed to everyone − motorists, cyclists and pedestrians alike − since June 25 when TDOT crews found a distorted steel piece that could have caused part of the structure to buckle.
“God help us if a bird lands on it,” Boggs said. “It was basically a pedestrian bridge. It helped connect us to the Urban Wilderness over there.”
Kincannon said what seemed like minor damage could have led to a “catastrophic failure” if the problem weren’t attended to. The long-term goal is to replace the bridge, but the city just doesn’t have the time or money to immediately take on another bridge project.
“For a full replacement and evaluation, we’re going to need federal and state dollars,” Kincannon said, noting the pedestrian-only option is a good “stop gap” for the next “15 years or more.”
Boggs and other business owners expressed feeling left in the dark about reopening plans, culminating with the Feb. 12 announcement that seemed to come out of nowhere.
“The city hasn’t said a word about it,” Boggs said before the news broke, later telling Knox News that “at least we know what’s going on now.”
Restaurants, bars hungry for a Gay Street Bridge reopening timeline
Southside Garage owner James Tourville said the closure hasn’t seemed to affect his Sevier Avenue business, though he still wants to know a timeline for reopening.
“We still had a great year as a business, and it seems like the street did as well,” Tourville said. “We’d obviously like some sort of resolution to it or at least know what’s going on here. It’s not like it slashed our sales or something like that.”
To reopen the bridge for pedestrians and cyclists (and the occasional emergency and transit vehicles), the city must spend $2 million on repairs. Pair that with the $19.2 million Sevier Avenue streetscape − add in the $60 million pedestrian bridge being built between the South Waterfront and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville − and it’s clear the city is prioritizing its urban core.
All of this change is happening as the Knoxville Smokies prepares to unveil the public baseball stadium opening April 15, one of the largest downtown developments in decades and one that is expected to transform the boundaries and busyness of the city’s center.
Joanna Hayes is the restaurant and retail reporter. Email: joanna.hayes@knoxnews.com.
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